Spansion has employed Barclays Capital to support efforts that could see the company sold or merge with another company as its struggles in the current industry downturn. Concern has grown recently on whether the company can remain solvent as losses have continued since its spin off from AMD, several years ago.

The NOR flash memory manufacturer has also delayed paying interest instalments on an outstanding loan, which the company said was part of a potential balance sheet restructuring move. A 30-day cure period on the 11.25% Senior Notes due 2016 has been initiated.

Spansion said that it would investigate business opportunities with both U.S. and foreign companies. Spansion has two main front-end manufacturing operations in the U.S. and Japan.